Library Ethics Greater Sins Chapter 31 Helping the Oppressors Types of oppressors
Types of oppressors
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Types of oppressors
‘Zulm’ the Arabic word for oppression and injustice implies disregard for Divine commandments and also to oppose whatever is compatible with reason and logic. There are two types of such oppression:
(1) Crossing the limits of religious law is equal to polytheism. As the Almighty says,
“...most surely polytheism is a grievous inequity.”
(Surah LuqmÄn 31:13)
(2) Belying the Divine signs is also oppression as stated in the Holy Book,
...and the unbelievers- they are the unjust.”
(Surah al-Baqarah 2:254)
In short, we can say that all the religious laws that we are supposed to follow according to reason or religious commands must be obeyed in totality. Not accepting them or not believing them is a kind of injustice. Apart from this, non-acceptance of the Divine commands or not acting upon them or disregarding the limits specified by the Almighty, like neglecting a Wajib act or doing a HarÄm one, all of these constitute injustice.
Thus the Almighty Lord says,
“...and whoever exceeds the limits of Allah these it is that are the unjust.”
(Surah al-Baqarah 2:229)
This also applies to injustice upon ones own self. As Allah (S.w.T.) mentions:
“Therefore whoever disbelieves, his unbelief is against himself.”
(Surah FÄt’ir 35:39)
Various kinds of oppressions include insulting, abusing, degrading or imprisoning a person; also backbiting or accusing a person falsely or hurting a person physically. Another form of oppression is to usurp someone’s property or to obtain it without the owner’s permission, or not to return the rights to its owner etc. Another way of usurping a right is to forcefully occupy a position reserved for someone else. The supreme example of such injustice was comitted by the tyrant rulers of Bani Umayya and Bani Abbas when they usurped the position of WilÄyat which clearly belonged to the Holy Ahl ul-Bayt (a.s.). Another example is that of the unjust jurist who assumes the seat of Qazi.
Oppression belongs to two categories. In one category are the tyrant rulers and vicious kings, for whom committing oppression is a normal practice. In the second category are the individuals who may do injustice to someone else once in a while. We shall study all these types of injustices in four sub-topics.
